Winter Solstice

I have news for you:
The stag bells, winter snows, summer has gone
Wind high and cold, the sun low, short its course
The sea running high.
Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost;
The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry,
cold has seized the birds' wings;
season of ice, this is my news.
9th century Irish

But that was then. We’ve turned the corner. Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and the darkest, has come and passed.
Most of us didn’t notice. We were at the mall. Wrapping presents. Baking cookies. Cleaning house. Welcoming family. December 21st was a busy day.

So let’s take a few moments now to join a celebration that has existed, in one form or another, for thousands of years. At its heart is a farewell to darkness, the rebirth of the sun, and a whisper of the spring to come. At this time, we cast off regrets and set new goals for ourselves. All things are possible.



Winter Solstice Celebration
Glastonbury Tor
England






So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!!
Susan Cooper

Over the centuries, rituals of various ages and cultures have melted into one another. Druids gathered holly, ivy, and mistletoe for their rites. Yule celebrants brought trees into their homes so the wood sprites would have a place to keep warm. The Yule log did its part. Here is a version of a traditional Yule Fire Spell.

Grind three dried leaves of holly into powder. Write on a four-inch square of paper, in red ink or blood, one word that represents the quality you want to be born in you when the Goddess gives birth to the new sun. Sprinkle the holly powder in the center of the paper, twist it closed, and with fire from a red candle, burn the paper and powder. As it is consumed, visualize your wish fulfilled. And turn your heart to hope.

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
The Peace of Wild Things Wendell Berry

Some treasures from the past year are gone forever from us. We mourn them and remember.


As the summer faded, we lost Irish singer and poet Tommy Makem, but his music and words live on . . .

Winter, a sharp bitter day
the robin turns plump against the cold
the sun is weak
silver faded from gold
he is late in his coming and short in his stay
Man, beast, bird and air all purging, all cleansing, earth already purified awaits the rite of spring
Her bridal gown a virgin snow and frosts in her hair
A snowdrop by the road today bowed gracefully and high upon the wing up in the sparkling nothingness, a lone bird
began to sing
Can gentle spring be far away?

Where the Stories Come From (Lynn Kerstan)

So there I was, flapping my elbows against my sides and clucking like a chicken. In front of several hundred chortling people.

What? You’ve never done that? Well, neither had I. But in its way, that long-ago night was a transforming experience. Even though I, unlike the other "subjects" on the stage, was not actually hypnotized.

I certainly didn’t feel under any power but my own. So what that I went along with all the hypnotist’s instructions? I have a degree in theatre. I like to perform. When he said, "You are Anna Pavlova dancing the dying swan," I loped and pirouetted and finally shuddered to stillness in a heap. When he told me I was watching the saddest movie I’d ever seen, I wept.

I can fake all that stuff. To this day, even though I was selected to appear in the popular San Diego nightclub show a dozen times, I remain convinced I was just playing along.

Which is, of course, exactly the heightened suggestibility produced by hypnosis. Hmm.

I wanted to know more about this phenomenon. The hypnotist, a brilliant entertainer, was also a scholar (with Ph.D.) dedicated to teaching people how to access and use the power of the subconscious mind. In exchange for some basic research work, he took me on as a student. Later, utterly fascinated, I studied with a non-entertainer expert in the field. Then I found another all-consuming interest and moved on.

What does this have to do with writing? Very sketchy, non-tech outline here. The imagination that creates whole worlds and complex characters and powerful stories resides in a mysterious no-place (related to brain activity), described by some as the alpha state. When the brain vibrates at the frequency range in which nocturnal dreams and daydreaming takes place, we are in the realm of the subconscious. But imagination and dreaming are not its only functions. Far from it.

Almost everyone has experienced the subconscious doing its silent work. Driving is a good example. You set out for a familiar destination. You’ve got a lot on your mind. Suddenly, you look up and discover you are almost there. You have little or no recollection of changing lanes, stopping at lights, making turns. While you were planning the day’s schedule or trying to make a tough decision, your subconscious was driving the car. Conscious and subconscious minds, working together.

During our waking hours, our brains operate at a higher frequency range (beta), which lends itself to the practical, the rational, the decision-making roles. But always the subconscious is there, like an underground river. And just beneath it (at a lower frequency, theta) our emotions thrum.

All good stories require imagination (subconscious), craft (conscious), and emotion. A writer must access and interweave them, which is no easy thing.

We court these mysterious forces that are intricately contained within ourselves. Give them names, like "Muse" or "Gertrude." Stephen King says that his ideas come from the Boys in the Basement. Women writers often call them the Girls. They are rarely within our control, or even within our power to summon on demand.

So we use tricks. Rituals. Affirmations. Sometimes even self-hypnosis. Lucky for us, the subconscious can be programmed. Unfortunately, that’s easiest to manage before adolescence.

But nothing stops a writer with a story that has to be told. We summon our inner Peter Pans, tell ourselves we can fly, and keep telling ourselves that until we are airborne.

Next time . . . the Tricks of the Trade.

(It was going to be this time, but I got diverted. And as any hypnotist knows, a good subject possesses the ability to concentrate. Which is why I was never actually hypnotized. Maybe.)